A marketing chief, without the full-time salary.
For firms where the managing partner is still the marketing department. John Wright, Darkstar’s founder, joins your leadership team part time. He sets the plan, owns the budget, manages every vendor and holds the numbers to signed cases.
Marketing is a second job for the person who should be practicing law.
Most firms your size can’t justify a full-time CMO, so marketing falls to a partner’s nights and weekends. Vendors grade their own work, budgets roll over out of habit, and nobody owns the number that matters.
No one owns the plan
Each vendor runs its own channel its own way. Without one person setting direction, spend drifts toward whoever pitched last, not toward the cases you want.
Vendors grade their own work
Your SEO agency reports on SEO. Your ad agency reports on ads. Nobody on your side reads those reports against what actually signed.
Spend without a scoreboard
Budgets get set once a year and rarely move. Without cost per signed case by channel, you can’t tell which dollars to double and which to cut.
Operating rhythm
A standing seat at the partners’ table.
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Weekly
Lead and intake review. Spend pacing across every channel. Quick check-ins with each vendor.
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Monthly
Partner meeting: what came in, what signed and what it cost. Budget moves for the month ahead.
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Quarterly
Planning session. Channel mix reset, targets by practice area, and a scorecard for every vendor.
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Annually
The marketing plan and budget, tied to case value. A hiring plan for when marketing comes in-house.
Everything a CMO owns. Nothing you have to manage.
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/ 01
Strategy and budget
An annual plan and channel mix built from your case values, not industry averages. Budget is set by what each practice area can afford to pay for a signed case, then moved as the numbers come in.
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/ 02
Vendor oversight
Your intake service, ad agency, video team and PR firm all report to one person on your side, including vendors who aren’t Darkstar. Clear briefs, honest scorecards and a straight answer on who is earning their fee.
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/ 03
Intake and attribution
Call audits, speed-to-lead and follow-up standards for your intake team, with every signed case tracked back to its source in Clio. Marketing gets judged on retainers, not clicks.
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Leadership cadence
A monthly partner meeting and a quarterly planning session, so marketing decisions get made on a schedule with real numbers instead of in the hallway.
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/ 05
Building your bench
When it’s time to hire in-house, John writes the role, helps you interview and onboards your first marketer against the plan already in place.
Explore complementary systems
Give marketing a seat at the partners’ table.
Tell us where the firm is today. We’ll come back with what the first 90 days would look like.